Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Unexpected Route Markers in the Night

Suddenly they appear in the night

Along a familiar road, the same old path, the tried and true route, the comfortable and familiar. The night closes in and opens up and wraps me in stillness. Some lights on houses and cars and poles are colored, true, but most things appear monochrome: the road, the lines, the stars (unless you look really close), the mind-carving sky, all are either white or grays on the way to black. As it should be at this time, on this date, with a pool of white light projecting out in front of me.

Then appearing within the pool two hexagons of bright non-monochrome blips on the line. They were not there before on this route, as far as I recall. They mark something, some way, to somewhere. Chances are, a race, or ride, or run, to somewhere, from somewhere: an event, an occasion, a group thing. They are for collective feet or wheels to be guided by eyes drawn to them as mine were. But I'm not currently in that group (as far as I know) or doing that thing (as far as I know) yet my eyes are drawn to them and pointed toward the goal (whatever it may be) of that thing, and whatever, wherever it is, I venture that it is a new place or different route than my home, which is where the route I am on takes me normally, and will take me still if I do not deviate. How peculiar if their group thing turned out to be my home. But I do not think so. I think these florescent hexagons rather point the way to another place via another route which both may be new to me.

I think I will follow that route, and look for that thing, and seek out that place. Not the particular thing or place of the people who placed these particular route-marking arrows, no, but instead the ideas of them: the thing that they seek beyond the specific present one, the place they are going to which is beyond the familiar place, the route they are following which is not the route that they would follow if the arrows were not here, but rather the one which requires new arrows to find the way. The new route, the new thing, the new place. Those ideas. Some colored hexagons showed me the general direction. The ride is turning down that way, now. Perhaps more arrows have been placed farther along, although no more are appearing in the pool of light, not yet. Just the black road, and the grays of the night that shade eventually to points of white that fill the sky.

1 comment:

I've been seeing a lot of those route arrows, too. And I've been meaning to follow them to the website they direct me to. And so thanks for the reminder. Not what I expected to find on the web, though. I thought it might be some riding group or something. Route arrows. Just route arrows. Put them anywhere you want. Maybe I'll put one on my top tube facing forward… always forward...

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Let's Just Ride

I commute by bicycle in Phoenix, Arizona, a metropolis suited to riding bicycles of all types, with weather, mountains, roads, canals, and paths to keep me forever spinning. My favorite bike tools are an open mind, creative engagement, curiosity, compassion, common ground, and the search for knowledge.

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